The important thing that I forgot to mention in the previous post is that the Weather Panel for Canberra is showing the week leading up to winter, whereas the London one is obviously leading up to summer.

Turns out that by the end of the week, the weather in London had improved and it was a nice sunny day on Friday (about 27 degrees Celsius). On the train on Friday morning I picked up Metro (free commuter newspaper) and read that it was going to be a similarly nice sunny day on Saturday, but would be colder and greyer again by Sunday. The thing I found quite ridiculous about this is obviously not that the weather would go crap so quickly, but that two consecutive days of 27 degrees is considered a 'heatwave'. Yes, seriously. The newspaper said something about 'the heatwave will be over by Sunday'.

BTW, this is what the Weather Panel had to say about Arlington. All over the place - everything from happy suns to grumpy thunder clouds with lightning. Crazy stuff.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Median age at marriage: 31.2 years (males) and 29.1 years (female).Median age at first marriage: 29.2 years (male) and 27.3 years (female).Percentage of couples who live together before marriage: 75%Percentage of marriages in which neither party had been previously married: 66%

Friday, May 20, 2005

People keep telling me that it will get better, but I've been here for six months and it's still crap. Actually, that's a little too harsh. The weather has changed from really crap to slightly less crap, so there has been some improvement. And there has been one day in the last six months where an overcoat wasn't absolutely necessary.

Canberra is not especially known for good weather. However, compared to London, the Canberra weather is awesome.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

To go outside, and there perchance to stayOr to remain within: that is the question:Whether 'tis better for a cat to sufferThe cuffs and buffets of inclement weatherThat Nature rains on those who roam abroad,

Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,And so by dozing melt the solid hoursThat clog the clock's bright gears with sullen timeAnd stall the dinner bell.

To sit, to stareOutdoors, and by a stare to seem to stateA wish to venture forth without delay,Then when the portal's opened up, to standAs if transfixed by doubt.

To prowl; to sleep;To choose not knowing when we may once moreOur readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball;For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,And going out and coming in were madeAs simple as the breaking of a bowl,What cat would bear the household's petty plagues,The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom,The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears,The trampled tail, and all the daily shocksThat fur is heir to, when, of his own free will,He might his exodus or entrance makeWith a mere mitten?

Who would spaniels fear,Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard,But that the dread of our unheeded criesAnd scratches at a barricaded doorNo claw can open up, dispels our nerveAnd makes us rather bear our humans' faultsThan run away to unguessed miseries?

Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;And thus the bristling hair of resolutionIs softened up with the pale brush of thought,And since our choices hinge on weighty things,We pause upon the threshold of decision.

From the book: Poetry for Cats : The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse by Henry Beard

Friday, May 13, 2005

I saw a news article recently which said that the number of mobile phone subscribers in Norway has recently exceeded the number of people. And it's not just the Norwegians who love mobiles, apparently the same can be said of the Lithuanians.

Here are some statistics from the article:

Norway -- 4.7 million registered cell phone subscriptions in 2004, indicating that 102 percent of the country's total population has become portable

Norway -- more than one in six households, or 17 percent of the population, last year said they did not have a home phone

Lithuania -- 3.7 million people in Lithuania were mobile phone subscribers, which was more than the national population of 3.4 million

Thursday, May 12, 2005

When a cat is dropped, it ALWAYS lands on its feet; and when toast is dropped, it ALWAYS lands with the buttered side facing down. Therefore, I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat. When dropped, the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground, probably into eternity. A "buttered-cat array" could replace pneumatic tires on cars and trucks, and "giant buttered-cat arrays" could easily allow a high-speed monorail linking New York with Chicago.

Rebuttals:

Allow a humble engineer to comment. In the described mode, the buttered cat array will drop like a stone and go splat. The toast is on the cat's back, so its feet are free. Presumably, the toast is butter side up. Dropped from any height, the cat's feet OR the buttered toast both are attracted to the ground, and there is nothing to stop the descent to splat-dom. It is the cat's BACK, and the UNBUTTERED side of the toast that repels the ground. For the "buttered cat array" to work, the cat must have four pieces of toast attached to its paws, with each paw firmly planted on the butter side. THIS array will then "hover, spinning inches above the ground" as the toast tries to flip over to the buttered side and the cat tries to spin so it's back is upright. -- Stan P

"Would you believe that I actually tried that buttered-cat thing, it didn't work and my cat scratched the shit out of me...?" -- Kain O

I am sorry to have to spoil your grand hopes of the perpetual motion machine but: The proposed revision to the buttered cat array will simply not work. In order to have the assembly work properly, the center of gyration would have to coincide with the plane through which the junction of toast and paws pass. The current proposed configuration has two masses joined together, which are of extremely unsimilar masses. The resultant center of gravity would be; depending upon the breed of cat; approximately 1/4" above the belly of the cat. The forces acting against the approaching ground, working through the junction of sole and butter, causing the assembly to rotate around the off-centered point of gyration; resulting in the cataclysmic disassociation of all parts in common. Not to mention the loss of life and limb of any laboratory worker foolhardy enough to try and get one piece of buttered bread onto a cat let alone attempt this feat four times. (Everybody knows that the cats' disposition in indirectly proportional to the fifth power of the cats discomfort.) -- Jeff B

The other thing to keep in mind is that you'd have to be careful where the cat is dropped...in the northern hemisphere, the spinning cat would, of course, spin in a counterclockwise direction, ala hurricanes and toilet bowls. South of the equator, the reverse would be true. A regulatory commission would have to be established to prevent mean spirited people from dropping buttered cats ON the equator, which would cause them to spin both ways at once, either turning them inside out or making them politicians. The truly perverse would tie the cat's feet together, apply the buttered toast, and then watch with glee, as the reverse g-force applied to such a concentrated area would shoot the cat up into the sky like some furry rocket. You have to be careful with these things. -- Rev. Glenn F."

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

A couple of people emailed this to me. You've probably seen it before. It's one of those emails that does the rounds every now and then. It's pretty funny so I thought I'd post it here.

_____________________

Question: If, when you drop a buttered piece of bread, it drops butter side down and a cat always lands on its feet. What would happen if you took a piece of buttered bread, strapped it on the back of a cat (butter side up) and dropped it?

Answer: Even if you are too lazy to do the experiment yourself you should be able to deduce the obvious result. The laws of butterology demand that the butter must hit the ground, and the equally strict laws of feline aerodynamics demand that the cat must land on it's feet. If the combined construct were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this paradox.

Therefore it simply does not fall.

That's right you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you have discovered the secret of antigravity! A buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are in equilibrium. This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent.

Most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle to drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred cats.

The one obvious danger is, of course, if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backs they will instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land on their feet, but this usually doesn't do them much good, since right after they make their graceful landing several tons of red-hot starship and irritated aliens crash on top of them.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Peter and I were visiting some friends last weekend. I noticed that their bookshelf contained a copy of The Da Vinci Code and a copy of Harry Potter 5. I mentioned that I had read The Da Vinci Code and HP5 but Peter had not (Peter is partway through the fifth Harry Potter book).

I concluded from these two pieces of information that Peter must be quite unusual. Hasn't everyone read The Da Vinci Code?? Hasn't everyone read all five Harry Potter books??

Peter added that he also hasn't seen the Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate WinsletTitanic movie. I then concluded that Peter must be the only person who hasn't read either of these two books or seen this film!

Friday, May 06, 2005

A nice lady is looking to adopt a stray kitty who's been visiting her apartment every day. She and her two kitties, Poustaki and Figgy, like the stray kitty and are happy to have him around, however, due to expensive vet bills for Figgy (who has asthma) and Poustaki (who has cerebellar hypoplasia), she can't really afford the set-up costs to adopt the stray kitty.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

I picked up a magazine at the supermarket today and discovered that a lot has happened in the celebrity world recently.

Apparently Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are officially an item now. I had heard the rumours months ago but didn't know that they were true. I also read that Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are an item!? The particular article I read was quick to point out that Katie was closer in age to Tom's daughter, Isabelle, than she was to Tom. Hmmm.

Other shock news in the magazine was that Britney has been putting on weight since becoming pregnant. Oh the scandal!